1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for installing software into an information processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, there is such a technique that when the software is activated after a personal computer (PC) installed software from a portable recording medium such as a CD or the like, the software is updated from a server on a network. For example, such a technique that if software of the latest version exists in the server on the network, the software is downloaded and installed, thereby updating the software to the latest version thereof, has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-189594.
Such a technique that when a PC tries to install software from a CD, first, the PC refers to the server to determine whether or not software of the latest version exists in a server and, thereafter, updates the software, has also been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-260476. In this case, if the software of the latest version exists in the server, the PC downloads the software of the latest version from the server instead of installing without reading out the software from the CD. If there is no software of the latest version, software recorded on the CD is installed.
However, according to the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-189594, after the software was installed from the CD, when the software is activated, the software is also further downloaded from the server and installed. There is, consequently, such a problem that the installing operation is required repeatedly and it is troublesome to the user.
According to the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-260476, if the software of the latest version exists in the server, the software of the latest version is downloaded from the server instead of the CD and installed. In this case, there is such a problem that since a data amount of the software is large, it takes a time for downloading, so that a load of the server and a load of a communication path increase, and further, a waiting time which the user has to have before the download is completed becomes longer.